Olivia

by R. Lee Smith

Olivia Blake has been taken. Out of the bed where she slept. Out of the nice, safe apartment filled with all her ordinary things. Out of the quiet, Northwestern town where no monsters could possibly exist. Out of her whole human world. But the worst thing about monsters is, they don’t always want to kill you. Sometimes, they want to keep you. OLIVIA is the uncut, uncensored edition of R. Lee Smith’s first full-length novel—the tale of one young woman’s descent into a dark, savage new world she must not only embrace, but ultimately fight to save.

Genres: Fantasy, Dark, Paranormal, Horror, Romance, Dark Romance, Erotica

688 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 2, 2011

Reviews

[Jane Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars for the first 75%. 2 stars for the rest. The ending was untidy and not complete. This is a very long book, like reading four to six books.

STORY BRIEF:
The gullan are cave dwelling bat creatures They had no offspring for 30 years due to reproductive problems caused by disease. They will die off if they don’t get healthy new DNA into their offspring. So they kidnap seventeen human women for breeding.

The life style is caveman style. Their food is strange hard bread, fruits, roots, and meat from hunts with spears and traps. They make soap and candles from animal wax. They make tools from metal. Their bedding and clothes consist of items stolen from nearby human campers and towns.

WHAT GENRE IS THIS BOOK? MORE THAN ONE.
This cannot be easily described with one genre label. It starts off as paranormal fiction, with almost a bestiality feeling of bat creatures taking human females prisoner for breeding. Some women react with horror at the forced sex. It then has romance but not the typical one mate for life. Olivia has one mate for part of the story and other mates later. Warm feelings and pleasant sexual experiences occur for some humans who form bonds with their bat mates. But these did not have the intense feelings of “I love you forever” that romance novels provide. They are more of a caring companion feeling. There might have been more loving bonds among secondary characters, but if so, the author didn’t go into those much. The best part is the interesting paranormal world. Also very good is the wide variety of interesting characters. The last segment of the book is a story set within the spirit-god world. This felt like mythology with conflicts among a god and goddesses and how they influenced lives and events for the mortal bat creatures and humans. Here sex is used in a strange and painful way, not for reproduction or pleasure.

REVIEWER’S OPINION:
I liked it. It’s different, and that’s why. But I did not like the ending. I didn’t know what happened to the male at the end. I didn’t know where Olivia was going, what she would do, or what abilities she had. I also wanted more details about the success or resolution (if any) for the gullan reproductive problems.

If you’re in the mood for suspense and action, this is not for you. Most of the story is about relationships and interesting things happening among characters and learning about their community. There’s some mystery which is wondering what will happen to various characters and the offspring problem. The first 75% was enjoyable. It was humans and bat creatures together. It made me think about what is missing from many typical paranormal romances. (They don’t bring in this amount of creativity and originality.) But the last 25% wasn’t as good, and at times I wanted that part to be over. That was the story about the god and goddesses. It was odd. I like the author doing odd things, but that part just didn’t hold my interest. It would have been better if I were in the heads of the gods. I wanted to understand their feelings and motivations better. I’d suggest changing and shortening that part. Although I was intrigued with some of the ideas, especially the goddess who connects with mortals through water. Water is everywhere around us and in us. We drink it. We are made of it.

I’m used to paranormal romances having passionate sex scenes between creatures and humans. But when it happens in this book, at first it has a bestiality feeling. It’s freaky. The gullan males are up to 6 feet tall, with broad black horns going up another foot, covered in sleek dark fur, talons on their three toes with a declaw on each ankle. The mouth is snoutish shaped. Later the sex scenes turn more pleasant. There is a lot of sex in this book. Sex scenes include rape. Two scenes include rear door activity and menage a trois - MWM.

The first chapter is a great example for authors as to how to create drama, emotion, mystery, fear, and horror as monsters are kidnaping humans. After that the focus is characters. I enjoyed the variety of personalities among the women and bat creatures. I felt the leader’s anguish over decisions he had to make. He hadn’t sought the position of leader. I found him interesting to watch. He made hard choices showing strength, but low on compassion. Cheyenne a human was a terror to her compassionate mate and others. I admired the leader who was the only one who could control her through fear. He threatened her and did something bad to her. Normally I don’t want to see a man abuse a woman, but here I saw her more as an evildoer who needed to be stopped. In her defense she was an unwilling prisoner who would never give up. But she was hateful and cruel to others, both humans and bat creatures.

I was intrigued with how Olivia adapted and her actions. She wasn’t a typical heroine. Some might find her bland, but I found her different. I liked her morality. She embodied compassion and forgiveness. At first, I didn’t like the way she avoided conflict and confrontation, but later I didn’t mind so much. Initially I didn’t like that she never told on anyone when she saw wrong doings. Later I decided I was glad she didn’t tell. I liked the scene in which someone felt Olivia had a connection with a spirit-god and asked her to pray for food. So she did, not expecting anything, and then was shocked when it worked.

This is a very long book, about the length of four to six books. Don’t expect to be done quickly. I think too many publishers force authors to shorten or lengthen their work to fit 300 to 350 pages. I like the idea of ebooks with no length requirements. I say let the author keep going until the story is done..

DATA:
Kindle count story length: 21,015 (1,534 KB). Swearing language: strong, including religious swear words. Sexual language: strong/erotic. Number of sex scenes: at least 41. Setting: current day mostly northwest US and Canada. Copyright: 2009. Genre: erotic paranormal fiction with romance. Ending: mostly good but incomplete and unfinished.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

SPOILERS



I knew that this book was probably not going to be the one for me from the moment I read the blurb. I don’t know why I decided to read it. I suppose I wanted to be taken out of my comfort zone just a bit. I hear that this author pushes the envelope and crosses lines. It has been categorized as horror erotica. I don’t generally like erotica because the stories are so stupid – usually nothing more than a way to move the reader from sex scene to sex scene - but I was curious to find out what exactly is horror erotica. Sounds somewhat controversial. At some point I am determined that I am going to read something controversial and like it. The blurb raised some red flags - human women being kidnapped to help save a dying race of humanoid furry people with bat wings. Yep. So yes I knew I was probably going to hate it, but it was supposed to be horror so maybe that would make it different – from your run of the mill typical shapeshifter romance anyway. I was right. I was also wrong. It was different in the sense that these beings don’t change shape, they are what they are, so no handy changing back to a human right before the fornication begins. However it was sort of the same in the sense of propriety and ownership displayed by the bat people (the Gulla) with regard to the women. I find this in almost every shape shifter group I have ever read about.

Even at the beginning there were things that were hard for me to read about. There was the kidnapping and anger inducing non-consentual sex, etc.. but there was also a pretty good story, which surprised me. Something about the author’s writing style just drew me in and I enjoyed the dialogue so I kept reading. I enjoyed the characterizations and there were a few scenes that actually had me laughing.
I also never really felt like it was true erotica, there were a few sex scenes but they weren’t as graphic as what I think of when I think of erotica. I feel like classifying this as horror also isn’t accurate because to me it just wasn’t what I would consider scary, if anything it was more weird and gross because the Gulla while having distinctly human bodies, did not have human faces – and there were kissing scenes. I like the fact that there were some women who never got on board and never stopped fighting. I thought the author did a really good job of throwing in a lot of different female personalities with varying reactions to their situations. One woman actually simply went catatonic. I also like the fact that the bat people didn’t completely get it right with regard to the women they stole. I think that this is something that the author got right, too. For example they thought they were getting women all still well within their breeding years – they didn’t (thank you facial treatments and hair coloring) They also assumed that all the women were unattached – they weren’t (one woman’s husband was away on a fishing trip.) One woman was sterile due to a botched abortion, etc. I think if the author had made it all sunshine and roses in this aspect it would have been unbelievable.

So up until a certain point, I was enjoying this. The humorous scenes, the painful scenes and all the little things that made this interesting, even the things that I hated were done well. I was supposed to hate those parts and I did just as expected. There was a total female oppression theme going on not only with the human women but also with small amount of barren Gullan women who remain in their tribe which was infuriating but which was being fought against by the human women and the changes they made were satisfying.

However there was a complete turning point in this book. Some people found it at 60%, some at 70%. I was one of the earlier DNF’ers. Right before I got to that point, I was starting to get mildly irritated. I found some of the plot aspects to be contradictory and there was one particular sex scene that happened for the stupidest reason. The main character (and she’s a Mary Sue to boot) cheats on her captor, whom she’s beginning to like. The author offers up a very handy and very unrealistic and unbelievable reason for this event. It read like an excuse. His arousal was just so potent, he was in such pain, blah blah blah, she had to help him (as a Mary Sue is wont to do) but I call bullshit. There was another similar episode earlier on during which there was no problem whatsoever with restraint, which at the time I found odd. Also there was the vilification of one of the captive women, which annoyed me. I felt that hers was one of the most realistic situational reactions of all. She fought back. I admired her. She did some horrific things too. She hurt our Mary Sue – it was her fault this little sex scene happened. Whatever. I wanted her to get away. I thought at least someone should escape. Anyway, back to the turning point. Right up until this moment I and I think a good portion of readers might have been feeling sympathy for these creatures. They wanted to save their race after all, and by any means necessary. So they plan another group kidnapping event. The women are not invited. This will take some time and therefor the women will all be passed off to another unattached male for safekeeping until their return (a few months or so) and yes they will be expected to put out. When the original mates return the temporary mates will stand aside and the women will go back to the first mate. Oh for crying out loud. These douchebags should die out. Our Mary Sue is horrified, naturally. So was I. And this really does contradict that earlier proprietary behavior. Here is an example, one of the women (who is a doctor) is patching up some of the injured men when her mate (I hate that term) hits her for touching another man. Yet a few short weeks later the entire group is going to set their mates aside to be sex-toys for their brothers. I didn’t buy it.

I started skimming at this point. Throw in some divine weird sex thing and suddenly this book crossed right over into full-on nonsensical idiotic erotica. The divine weird sex thing was also an excuse for our Mary Sue to engage in lots of graphic sex without losing her virtuosity. It’s not her fault, she’s really not a slut, she has to engage in three-ways to let off all the divine sex power she’s been filled with. Blah blah, think of Anita Blake. I think the author just introduced too many fabulous (as fabulous as snout-nosed and bat-winged can possibly be) men and she couldn’t decide who she wanted our Mary Sue to end up with. And since our Mary Sue doesn’t act this way there has to be a reason for the behavior.
The flimsy excuse for questionable behavior always aggravates me. If you want your character to be a slut, make her a slut. Don’t make it inevitable for some half thought out reason she has no control over. Personally, I would have found this to be a lot more satisfying if our Mary Sue would have simply said, fine – you don’t want me, you’re just going to pass me on, I will screw all of your brothers and friends. Not just the one you assigned me to. Because up until the moment of the giant bombshell there was happiness for some of these women and being passed off in this manner makes no sense. Yet no one fights it. It’s irksome.

So I skimmed and skipped a lot of what happened next. I did read the end though and I felt it was vague and completely unexplained. I do not want to be the one to interpret what the ending meant. I am not the one writing the book. I want the author to tell me, very specifically mind you, just where our Mary Sue went after her ordeal. This was basically a cliffhanger with another book not forthcoming.

My overall advice is, don’t waste your time with this one. It’s really really very long. Even with all the skimming and skipping I did.

[Hot Mess Sommelière ~ Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Edit: second read is complete, now considering doing a deep dive podcast episodes because I have THOUGHTS



Initial review:

OLIVIA, AKA Keeping Up With The Marriages of the Cave Golden Girl

Olivia Blake is unlucky: her life sucks and is kinda boring, and one night she is awakened in her apartment, herded outside into the night together with many other women and taken by winged, snouted, horned, furred Bat Men to their mountain caves - to be their Furry Brides!!

It goes exactly like you would expect: there is tears. Rapes. Suicides. Bitching and moaning. And there is Olivia. The speshul one. The tribe leader's mate. Golden Olivia who can do no wrong. Olivia who is the measure of all good.

Olivia is the kind of protagonist we see a lot but that I can't really picture as "real". She is quite passive. She goes along with the rapes. She urges the others to go along and be happy, or at least pretend. She's a collaborator. A sympathizer. A whore to the enemy.

Her alliance shifts not only from human to gullan but rather it shifts from her self (the most natural place for any sympathies to fall) to eternal harmony in the tribe.

She wants to flatten the waves. Pound in the nails that stick out. Soothe the roiling anger.

Obviously, quite a few of the other human hostages (all of them are getting raped, remember?) don't take too well to Olivia's well-meaning suggestions.

We are led, as readers, to take step after step away from the human victims and to put ourselves into the gullan perpetrators shoes. The gullan are a dying, inbred race with NO CHOICE but to kidnap (and rape) human women into submission.

Nevermind that the gullan could have been less rapey after the kidnapping. Y'know, they could have tried talking and building trust and then maybe waiting for that Stockholm syndrome to kick in before starting the whole rape thing. But with a champ like Olivia at the helm of the human resistance, I guess the gullan did not need a good strategy.

I digress.

The book isn't actually about humans being kidnapped and raped. Although that's happening. A lot. It's also not about the humans integrating (although that happens, sort of).

The book is called Olivia, because it's all about her: about the one human who makes the impossible happen. Who makes the best of the kidnapping and the rape. Who stands tall next to her tribe leading husband.

And once that husband is gone? Well, she moves on quickly. By the end of the book, Olivia has been mated to five different Gullan. That is NOT counting the casual sex she has with yet other gullan or the magical fucking she constantly has with the God of gullans.

Since the kidnapping (and the rape, and the dissent) is so prominent in the first 30% and beyond of the book, it is easy to think: oh well, she will have monster sex with her furry tribe leader until she falls in love with him and they live happily ever after.

No.

Olivia gets kidnapped and raped - she copes.
Olivia is confronted by unhappy, suicidal humans - she copes.
Olivia must make the best of being the leader's mate - she copes.
Olivia's mate leaves - she copes.
Olivia is raped, tricked, beaten, and deserted by her following mates - she copes.
Olivia is raped magically by a God - she copes.
Olivia is told of an important destiny linked to that God - she copes.

Throughout all these ordeals - it all actually reminded me of the fictional heroine "Misery" from Stephen King's famous thriller, where she finally emerges as some sort of bee queen/goddess and triumphs over life and death - Olivia never falls in love. In fact, while she forgives the tribe leader for raping her and he wins her respect and I guess, her friendship, Olivia is in fact more lonely and aloof than even Mara was (in the Scholomance by RLee Smith).

Olivia is compassionate in a vague and detached way, I suppose like you would picture a kind but too pious nun. She does have some kind of love for her fellow humans, but her real sympathy is with the drive to survival of the dying gullans. There are only a few of them left, so she agrees with them that they must be saved.

The shenanigans that happen in the mountains - with some of the humans putting up a fight, and a lesbian couple emerging - are cute background noise to the character development of Olivia: she must become the bee queen/goddess and triumph over life and death.

Oh, and get raped for hours and hours by a God, which is horribly unpleasant and regularly gives her internal damage.

It is hard to relate to someone so very girl-scouty as Olivia. Her sympathy with the gullan I could go on board with. Her outright rebuttal of the humans and their valid complaints (who wants to be raped every night?) are simply unforgivable.

That being said, the secondary cast was extremely strong: many of Olivia's husband left lasting impressions (albeit not on her, lol. She is one cold cow).

I also loved Wurlgunn (who is a clumsy fool), Mojo Woman (wish she had gotten more sreen time), Cheyenne (who, let's face it, wasn't the real bad guy), and my personal favorite Doru.

The main character, Olivia, was quite insufferable though.

The plot with the gods, and the bats, and all the tribe business was actually, if you strip it of Olivia's awful personality, great. But since she felt no real emotions for anyone and she always claimed a moral high ground she had no claim on ... it was very tiring to read.

I'm not sure I know anyone that would actually enjoy reading this. If you want to try out RLee Smith I would recommend going with another of her novels first. This one is for the diehard RLee fans, I think.


Pre-review:

My impressions so far:

What I want to say to the SPESHUL SNOWFLEYK main character, Olivia:



As for the bat men:


With an average rating of 3,44, I'm ready to read another best book of the year by the fabulous RLee, in my Buddy Read Marathon with Nenia Campbell!

I'm currently working on my RLee bingo card for Olivia. Here it is:

[T00zday · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story. I HAAAAATED the ending. I was thinking 5 stars easy until that damn vague ending.

This book was both beautiful & horrible. Dark & hopeful.

It felt very much like this should have been at least three separate books.
I think I need to read more from this author...and re-read this book to give a worthy review.

[Michelle [Helen Geek] · Rating 3 out of 5]

12/03/2013 --

Overall Rating = 3.5 Stars
Book Cover / Book Blurb / Book Title = 3 / 5 / 3 = 3.5 Stars
Writer’s Voice = 3 Stars
Character Development = 4 Stars
Story Appreciation = 3 Stars
Worth the Chili = 5 Stars -- [$6.50 on Amazon]

This review will be a bit tough for me. If you've read other reviews on this one, you'll notice many DNF'd at the 70% mark or so. There is a reason for this. The author took off in a direction that is a bit annoying and bordered on boredom for me. Up to this point, this book was really good. VERY good.

I also need to say, loud and very clear, I love this writer's imagination. LOVE it! Some may feel I'm being generous in the rating for this book. I don't think so.

** POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD ... YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED **

What stands out for me?
1 -- This writers incredible imagination. This is her take on batman. This is a story about bat men. Literally. Look closely at the cover and you'll see what I'm talking about.

2 -- I don't think this book is as alarming as some of this writers other works. What I mean is some of the triggers; rape/non-con, kidnapping, violence, etc. It does have some of these elements, but the world she creates within this story has a very simple explanation; survival.

An important thing to note, this is the debut for this author. This being the case, it really is understandable some of the issues I'll note. A really remarkable storyteller.

3 -- I love the bat character's she creates for us. I love the plot, the story, the concept. The execution is a bit lacking in only one aspect - mentioned above. I'll outline this below.

Now for a few things I found lacking:
1 -- At the 70% mark the book takes off in a direction that smacks of stupid and bored me. Think the Lessor's in the BDB series by J. R. Ward. Anytime those guys appear, I'm fast-forwarding. Same here. I found myself skimming quite a bit through to the end.

2 -- I normally like long books, and if this story had stayed on track with the first 70%, I would have been very okay. It didn't, so the book seemed incredibly long at 1032 pages. I really thought it would go back to the way it was in the beginning ... so hopeful. It didn't and left me VERY disappointed at the end.

3 -- We had so many characters to keep up with. Each had a very specific role and if you aren't careful, you may get confused. A little about me ... When I meet a character in a book, I try to remember something specific about them, especially if they don't have a name, a personality or feature I can connect with [too ordinary - Carla, Amy, etc.]. Either give us fewer characters, or make the characters more unique. Reminder -- this was the author's debut.

4 -- We did have the trigger elements; drugging and kidnapping women, rape and/or non-con situations. However, these are human like creatures on the brink of extinction and this is necessary in their hope of surviving. For this reason, maybe, I was okay with it. Maybe I shouldn't have been, but I was.

I loved these bat men. They had personalities and were just so interesting to me. Then the author moved off in a path I wasn't crazy about, but I could appreciate the creative talent driving this direction.

I continue to feel that this author is one I'll always buy and try. Anything. Because, even her mediocre is light years ahead of most. You've got to [or at least I do] appreciate the talent. More in her little writing finger than most have in their whole writing bodies. Seriously, a huge talent.

Happy Reading!

[Rachael*Caribbean*girl*bibliophile · Rating 1 out of 5]

Spoilers ahead


This is I believe my fourth book by this author and the worst I've read from her or actually for the year to date.


Olivia is kidnapped along with several other human women by bat men(not like Batman but actual males with bat like features🤷🏽‍♀️). Vorgullum and his people have been under a curse for many years, all the young born to their people are hopelessly deformed and eventually die, coupling between males and females has been banned unless the female is barren. Desperate to ensure the future of his people he takes his best hunters out, captures human women and orders his men to couple with them until they conceive. But the original gods are still at odds and Olivia has a very important role to play in saving not only his people but the children born of their union

******
1)Now I've read some dub con/non con from this author but this was a disaster.....straight up rape by women who are terrified out of their minds by creatures straight out of their nightmares

2)Olivia is taken by the leader and assumes a position of importance, she acclimated to her situation and set about bullying some of the other women into accepting things as they stood. I mean sure you've been kidnapped and repeatedly raped by bat creatures but could you just deal with it already.... Meanwhile these women are literally driven mad by the situation

3) Now I put up with a lot in the beginning but when it came to the appearance of the god it all fell apart. In a plot twist that reminded me of Anita Blake our h has to receive power from a god in order to battle another goddess to save the lives of the people.... Of course this power is only through brutal sex and Olivia then has to release some of that power by having sex with other members of the tribe 🙄

4) As if that wasn't enough with Olivia and some of the other women pregnant Vorgullum decides to go on another raid to provide his other hunters with human women. By tribe law all mates are to be given to others who are able to provide for them during their mates absence.... So it's basically sex with another bat dude or single life in the women's section still harassed by the bat dudes. Olivia ends up having sex with 3 or was it 4 other guys

5)The actual plot.....what in the fuck was that bs with the gods?

5)Is this a romance? Who's the actual hero? Because she seemed much more suited to her little threesome situation than she did to her original mate, she actually seemed to care more about the guys than she did her original mate too

6) That baby was nothing more than a prop, he was placed down so many times just for his mom to bang her brains out while under the "power" I felt sorry for the poor mini bat. Then he's given to his uncle and that was the end of that.....very rarely did this new mother's thoughts ever run to her child's well being

7)What the ever living fuck was that ending? It's a non ending! Ffs! Battle with the gods and she goes home.... Home where? To whom? What about the other humans recently kidnapped? What about the other mate Vorgullum was taking? Who's Olivia gonna stay with? 🙄 slugging through so many pages of hot mess to come upon that stupid end pissed me the fuck off!!!!


Side note I can't stand this dumbass cry baby h who everyone thinks is oh so speshul🙄 I'd have much preferred Amy or Tobi as the h


In summary..... This author has got some serious talent... She's gotten me to enjoy books where the mcs actually sleep with op and that's a no go for me....but this? This was a hot hot mess and I'm going to assume it's a one off(hopefully)


******Safety*****

To the members of the safety gang.... This is an author to avoid, I've read 4 books thus far and each and every one has rape, violence, abuse and mistreatment of women and sex with others.

In this instance the h is the one actually smexing here there and every damn where. Aside from that....rape, suicide, non/con, violence and probably some other stuff I forgot to mention 🤷🏽‍♀️

[Mara · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF 60%

I tried. I swear I tried. I really did not want to abandon this book. I loved The Last Hour of Gann. I did. With all its good and bad points. I simply loved it. I loved the idea here too. The world, however hateful.

But Olivia, oh God Olivia. I can suffer everything for a heroine I root for, Amber, for example. She went through horrific things, and I went through them with her. But Olivia, Olivia I wished her dead almost from the beginning. (Well, no, at first I simply waited for a reaction, than I despised her, than I hated her :)

I can't stand stupid heroines, but at the end they are just that stupid. Who cares. I simply move on. But saints. Saints I despise. Strongly.

Olivia is a saint (and later a Saint too, through the Great Spirit). Few girls I hate more than stupid saints. So ready to suffer, to be martyrs, to smile through pain. Olivia went from unbelievable to unacceptable.
The only woman I could stand and maybe root for was the one who was transformed by the story in to a villain. (Unfairly by the way.) Plus, in a more problematic way, all the resisting women are either evil or absentee.

I understand survival, but that is not what Olivia does. At least not in my mind. I couldn't see her reasons into accepting to be a doormat. (She's not one, she makes herself into one.)

She smiles and say yes please and thank you through a kidnapping, multiples rapes, being forced into a culture where a female is a being with no rights unless mated, being impregnated and knowing that nothing would matter but that baby, that you'd be killed otherwise, that your acceptance means other women will suffer your fate and, at 50%, that you are passed along to an other male as a fuck toy (for your protection of course). Whatever your wishes would simply be unimportant. I didn't see a single moment of rage, of defiance, of battles. Or yes we are told she's actually doing it, but she's only conforming. Without a single itch.
It's absolutely true that the hero and his race had few choices. Damn, I would probably do the same, but it's not the same as accepting them when you are on the other side. You can see you enemy's reason, would that mean you'd accept to let them win? No, because you are important too.
Yes, I could see his reasons. But yes I would have despised him for some of them anyway, ie, Victoria.

You know, I care for the environment. I try my best to avoid any harming it. But would I die to save the Pandas? Honestly I doubt it. But sure as hell I wouldn't accept all that above to save the race.

It takes a hell of a lot of motivation to accept what she's going through and honestly I couldn't find an ounce of believable ... anything ...(and yes this is a paranormal story...)

I admit that the religious angle was even more unbearable. Again I loved Gann where the hero was a fucking warrior priest solid in his faith. But Amber was an atheist. She didn't talk to god and sure as hell wasn't touched by it. Here Gods are part of the story heavily, she's even raped by one. (Again, note she accepts the rape to save the soul of one of her kidnapper. Uhm... sorry, rot in hell??)


So, much before that mythical 70% mark where everyone stopped and went banana, I decided I couldn't really stand the woman any more (and was bored to boot, being unable to get into the story). And I wasn't at all keen to go on a mythical trip with her to save a race who I definitely thought should die. I AM NOT a masochist (even if my book choices might make you think so). So after the god-rape I said to her what she should have said to them well long before in the story. FU.

I am that weird, but I'm sorry to (I'm not sorry I'm weird...just to be clear *grin*). I wanted to go on reading. I kept on reading. This is the strength of such an author. But give me something that can drag me along, even something small, but I need it.

I wanted to read Schoolmancer, but I'm scared to. I did love this sample after all.

[Spuffed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Other reviewers pretty much nailed what I thought/loved about this book but I didn't find any dissatisfaction with the ending. I was okay with it. Sequel would be great because I loved it soooo much but I certainly didn't end up with a WTF at the end. Sometimes it's necessary to end a book without all the questions answered and I felt this was one of them. My second favorite of the author but just barely behind the "Lords of Arcadia" series.

Happy Reading!
-Spuffed "Half stars are for pansies and one gif is plenty."

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

4¼⭐︎ - just not quite enough to pull this into 5⭐︎ territory for me.

How does one describe an R. Lee Smith work without using itself as the descriptor? Elements of horror without being a horror novel, explorations of affection/love/sex without being a romance, sci-fi/paranormal/fantasy elements but still contained in this world that feels so real as to prevent escape. They simply are what they are: long reads about never-ending adversity and the beautiful things that grow there in spite of them, that leave you wanting more at the end because she never wraps up everything in a tidy little package. The endings are resolved and happy-ish but at high cost...who knows what too much further into the future will bring? There always looms an ominous uncertainty in them.

Olivia is no exception to this and quite possibly is the most R. Lee Smith book of all that she's written. It's hard to love, but I couldn't bring myself to hate it and all of the hardships and bitter truths contained within. This is her first full-length novel, and it's a damn fine story full of rich characters, complex cultures, and explorations of the self and our psychology.

Heros are not born, they're made. Often not by choice.

Trigger/Content Warning: Kidnapping, rape, forced breeding, self-harm, suicide, drugs, violence... really, just being written by this author is a TW/CW in and of itself.

At first glance, Olivia is a straight-forward monster abduction story, and opens with our eponymous main character standing in the parking lot of her apartment complex with 16 other women—in the middle of the night, in the rain, high as a kite, and trying to make sense of the giant gargoyle/bat men standing before her. While most of the other women are crying or in states of distress and melting down, Olivia is in a shocked state of calm.

But nothing is ever as it seems in a Smith book, and this one will lull you into a state of acceptance before peeling back another layer that will disorient you, make you question if you ever really understood what was going on, and changes the game entirely. At over 1000 pages, there's a lot of time to soothe you and send you into a lull before another rips back to start the process over. Soon, what started as a simple—and frankly, overdone—narrative evolves into something much more, with higher stakes.

I chose to consume this story slowly to give myself time to digest and process what I had read. Characters who seem to be only names vibrantly flesh out, mythology that seems unimportant becomes central to the story, and personal histories have more far-reaching consequences and importance than as first presented. There's a lot going on in here, and as long as one carefully reads it, nothing in how this story progresses is that strange or out of left field. Smith likes to make her heroines atheists/skeptics, and this played out in a shocking way in Olivia's tale. She quickly learns that one should be careful when invoking things one does not understand or doesn't believe in. A quick-thinking thoughtless statement can have life-altering consequences that ripple through and affect more than just yourself.

From your lips to god's ears.

Olivia herself is a hard character to love, though not the first of her type R. Lee has written. She has a lot in common with Amber from The Last Hour of Gann, though Amber is a more embraced FMC than Olivia is. The biggest difference between the two is their circumstances: Amber operates as one of only a handful of humans on an alien planet with no hopes of getting back to Earth but are relatively free for most of the story, while Olivia is one of even fewer human women enslaved in a mountain with no hopes of returning to human civilization. They either play-nice or die, and I think that makes a lot of what happens in this story harder to swallow, knowing that civilization is RIGHT THERE if the women can just get out without getting caught. If they just tried harder. It feels like more of the usual social conventions and rules we have should apply, but they don't. They may as well be on an alien world far from planet. As such, traits that are admirable in Amber lose their luster with Olivia. As Smith herself even points out in the text, if this story were a movie, the characters who would be most sympathetic and cheered on would not be Olivia and the women who assimilate into the Gullan world while working to subtly change it, but the ones who resist to their own detriment and ugly ends. Both Amber and Olivia are embodiments of uncompromising and bottomless forgiveness, no matter how much abuse is heaped on them. While Amber has Scott opposite her, Olivia has Cheyenne—a woman who in her previous life was involved with helping women out of abusive, exploitive, and violent situations. (We can never be sure exactly what she did, as she speaks only in bitter vagueness about her prior life when trying to get Olivia to aid her. Her tactics for trying to engage Olivia's sympathy would hint that she helped women out of sexually exploitive/abusive circumstances that were preferable to her own.) In both stories, this trait is both admired and denigrated by frustrated MMCs and secondary characters involved with them. Neither Amber nor Olivia are women of action; they prefer to go-along and hope for the best with someone else heading the decisions and taking responsibility. Being culpable makes them uncomfortable. Neither will willingly step up. Both are forced into leadership/active roles that they resent but suffer through. Olivia is eventually forced into a heroic role she never wanted, starting with finding out her mate is the leader of this group of Gulla which makes her the "tallest" human and growing from there. The more Olivia is revered by the Gulla, the more she wants to hide in the comfort of being unknown. Both women have mystical/god elements with their "hands" on them, guiding them to their intended destinies. They're both tools to be used. Again, this is more pronounced with Olivia than with Amber but is still at play in TLHoG.

Because the MMC changes several times in this story, I'm not going to say much about them...other than the very mature, "Doru rules, and Vorgullum drools." Okay, not really, but one of those males is definitely the much more noble, brave, and respectable...stands taller, if you will. Related: exploring the dynamic between love/affection and sex in this story gave me a lot to think about. In a social structure like the Gulla, they are not one and the same.

The secondary characters in this story—whether human, Gulla, or divine—are all unique and rich as Olivia gets to know them better. It takes a while for some of them, since Olivia is pretty wrapped up in her own self and often has to be shocked by the revelation that she's not as involved in the community as she likes to think. There are very few throw-aways hiding in the large cast. It's impressive to see an author put so much effort and thought into presenting such a wide variety of characters in a single work. Of the human women, there's everything on the scale from completely shut down to fairly enthusiastically embracing their captivity when it comes to how they feel about living in the mountain. The Gulla are equally nuanced in their opinions about what they have done.

This is already ridiculously long, so I will wrap up with a lot unsaid— but I will leave with a controversial opinion:

I love how this book ended.

After all of the discussion of home in the "moment out of time" short-chapter, the way this story is left off is full of possibilities. Olivia knows she can never go back to living with humanity, and it's implied that living with the Gulla in the mountain is off the table because of how much her 1 year+ time in captivity and heroic journey have changed her. Where will she end up? Who knows, but it will be her home. One of many.




Oh. And what was up with all of the otter references in this one? "Soft as an otter." "Playful as an otter." Otters. Otters. Otters.

[Tiffany Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a while to read this book, mostly because I read a spoiler that the ending was going to be a disappointment. I absolutely adore R. Lee Smith and her books, and I have to say that while yes, the ending was vague and disappointing, the journey between was quite a ride. Beware of some spoilers ahead!

There is sex in this book. Lots of it. And it’s not always good. You have this race of people — the Gulla — who are similar to bats/gargoyles, and they are dying off. So their plan is to kidnap human women to take on as mates and breed. Now this can make or break it for some readers because…it’s rape. And these men/beasts know what they did was wrong, but it was in desperation. You have some women who eventually give in to their new life, and those who refuse to conform. And life is really, really hard for them. And if you’ve read R. Lee Smith books, you know she does not hold back. This book is both beautiful and terrible to read.

Olivia is a strong woman, and some people might disagree with that. Her forgiving nature brings her harm on more than one occasion. And she forgave Vorgullum, her original mate. And I say original because she ends up with more than one. This frustrated me. I hate how he just up and left her, even knowing what was going to happen to her and he couldn’t hold her to him, but he just…gave her up. He might mourn, but he just gave her up.

And then Doru! Oh I LOVED this man/beast. He was funny, he was large, but just a big ole softie. And in the end…he came through for her no matter the outcome. He had to of been my favorite.

You’ll come across many, many side characters in this book. One that I adored was Murgull. Mean ole bat, but she was funny and caring in her own way. Kodjunn as well… *Sigh*

This review is getting long… Despite the way it ends, I liked this book. I didn’t love it as much as I do some of Smith’s other works, but this was still such an amazing world with a race of people you sympathize and come to care for.

[Erin Kyle]

Couldn't do it. DNF at 75%.

Have you ever been so tired (while reading) that you manage to read the same paragraph 8 times in quick succession, and still have no idea what it's saying?? That's what happened with me and this book. Just before giving up, I paused mid-chapter when I realized, with each passing word, that I had no idea why Person A was sleeping with Person F because last I remembered, Person A had been sleeping with Persons C and D! (And, yes, by the 75% marker, it is ALL about sex.)

The beginning (as most have said) is interesting. It's the plot described in the description paragraph(s). But then, the story continues past that, straight into WTF Land, home of many strange and vaguely stupid things that occur randomly with no legit explanation.

Yes, I'm annoyed. I liked the first 60%! I tolerated the 14% after that, and that last 1% (where my progress came screeching to a halt at 75% complete) was painful...I think. By then, I had lost all interest in the MC's sexual proclivities (for indeed, by this point, the story has *completely* devolved into a revolving door of sexual partners...you think I'm exaggerating, but alas). If quizzed immediately upon abandoning the novel, I wouldn't have been able to tell you the goings-on of the last 5 pages, because those five pages had melded together with the previous five pages with the 50 pages before that into one gigantic, gratuitous bat-fu*k!

The most I can say (whilst avoiding spoiler territory) is this: when magic/gods get involved, put down the book. It's like halfway through, the story grows a second head. It's useless and malignant, but there it is, just flopping around there, mucking everything up and completely obscuring any original plot/motivation. IMO the best thing Smith could do in this particular situation is chop off the flailing and malignant head. It drags down the rest of the story -- drags it WAY down -- and suffocates it, so why not be rid of it?! Awful.

[Frankly Frankie · Rating 4 out of 5]

If your sociology professor decided to write erotica they would have written this book.

There was soo much sex – think Anita Blake - I don't know what I'll read next to cleanse my pallet, maybe Franklin or something. I rarely go for heroines that switch up partners so much. Everything, literally everything, was solved by sex.

So why did I read 1000+ pages of bat sex, spirit sex and divine impregnation?

Well, what actually kept me going through this was the commentary on society and gender roles that was all mixed up in the mysticism of the bat people and their gods. The story and struggles of these people was actually pretty compelling. I got very attached to certain characters.

I will probably never re-read it as much as I re-read the Last Hour of Gann but this book was different. I don't think I've fully wrapped my head around it yet.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank the Lord this is finally over 😭

At the beginning it was a solid 4 stars. I figured the low rating had to do with the sexual violence and, at best, dubious consent (though more often, straight up rape). Certainly, it's a valid reason to 'nope' out of a book. For me, I enjoy exploring those themes, and I often enjoy how R Lee Smith, specifically, explores them.

I was also taken aback that there were so many women, most of them behaving in very realistic and realistically diverse ways to their extreme circumstances. It's a deviation from the R Lee Smith norm, where our heroine is generally (even and especially in later works) set apart from the rest of humanity, including human women. It worked really, really well, and I wish we would get more of its like.

The overall concept of this book was really interesting to me, as was the design of the "monsters." From a philosophical point of view, it's fascinating to confront the questions posed in the first part of this book: How would a person respond to being stripped from their life and forced into a "marriage" of sorts with a monster? Does it make it more or less tragic if you continue fighting? Or if you accept your circumstances? Is there any situation, even the possible extinction of a race of sentient beings, that would justify such a crime? Can there be love and family and future despite such evil beginnings?

These are questions you don't get asked in literature very often, particularly not in today's cultural climate, but Smith has never been afraid of presenting such impossible moral quandaries to her readers. It's why I keep coming back to her work despite striking out almost more than I hit home.

Sadly, though, Olivia lost itself around the 60% mark. It was at that point that all the juicy moral arguments fell away to allow our heroine to become another Taryn MacTavish--which is to say, completely insufferable and less interesting than she was at the beginning of the book. Presumably this book and the Lords of Arcadia books were written around the same time period, which means that sometime just after 2010, Smith was going through a major harem-fantasy period where she wanted to see her main characters dicked down by practically every male character she introduced, including and especially gods who have no business having dicks, anyway.

This batshit and totally boring deviation into hard supernatural / spiritual themes just did not work at all. It was messy, contrived, and totally at odds with the original framing of the novel, which was very much grounded in psychological and situational horror with dashes of fantasy and sci-fi thrown in for flavor. The first and second halves of Olivia honestly felt like two distinct novels. The first half was a solid four stars, the second a solid one. Thus, the two-star rating.

I will say that I enjoyed the relationship between Bodual, Doru, and Olivia a lot. I kind of wish that we had gotten that love story from the beginning, because it was both unique and satisfying and could have fit into the original narrative really well.

Oh, well. Onto the next one!

[Mel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the other R Lee Smith books despite some seriously disturbing sexual dynamics. I didn't buy the central premises that the work seemed to hang on. The role of the religious side of things was pretty WTF. Most of the characters were only sketched in, and back stories for anyone were minimal. I liked the Bodrual and Doru friendship a lot, but good grief, the justification for the sexual pairings was a bit all over the place and damned thin. Aside from Olivia, slut shaming was fairly revoltingly apparent. Olivia appears to have a magic hoohoo of Merry Gentry and Anita Blakesque proportions, that excuses any hint of sluttery in herself (the author presents polyamory for titillation, but wants to give Olivia an out, rather than have it be a choice?). My sympathies were really with the cast of women who actually kept wanting to leave, because really? The "no possible way out of this, may as well try to accept and look on the bright side" works well for Last Hour of Gann when stranded on an alien world, or in a locked dimension as with Scholomance (also very disturbing to me).But if these women had worked together this would have been a really short book that finished with "and then the previously abducted women spent some quality time at a firing range, bought a second hand tank and some army surplus rocket launchers, and awaited the next and last visit from the poor endangered bat-dudes. Poor bats, winners of this year's Darwin Award. The End.

[CGirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Olivia was the second R. Lee Smith book that I have read. The first being Heat, which I also highly recommend. Olivia is not a quick or easy read. The imagination of this author, the intricate world that she created from language to customs is impressive and addictive. Yes, there is sex and yes, it's graphic. For the most part, it makes sense to weave it into this 'new world'. It makes sense that sex is a primal and a life giving act, especially for a race that is dying. I enjoyed this book tremendously and R. Lee Smith has not disappointed me yet in any of her books. I'm currently on the 4th book of her Lords of Arcadia series. After that, I will wait patiently (NOT) with other R. Lee Smith fans for her next novel.

[Ellen Gail · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well. I finished it. I think this is the first R. Lee Smith book that I’ve read where I disliked significantly more than I liked. I could have easily DNFed this one and not have missed out on anything.

What a bummer.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The (almost literal) elephant in the room is the sheer size of this 1000+ page beast. For this genre (whatever you might call it - "horror erotica" doesn't quite capture the spirit, but I guess it's close), it's the equivalent of an entire short series in a single volume.

R. Lee is truly in a class all of her own: her willingness to explore the emotional (and sexual) ramifications of what would otherwise typical science-fiction and fantasy scenarios produces books that are entertaining, but very rarely comfortable. Her worlds have their own rules and the hapless heroine (and the reader) either learns to adapt or dies (or quits reading).

I lost count of the times R. Lee pulled the rug out from under us in Olivia. She lets us get comfortable on several occasions by giving us a sense (through unabridged detail) of the forming daily routines of our characters. And just when we start to feel like we have a basic mastery of the situation, R. Lee laughs at us and says, "you have no idea what's going on," and shakes the story up with a new cataclysm.

Like many other reviewers, I found the last quarter of the book hard to adjust to. Things I cared about were cast aside again and again until finally all that had come before was pushed almost completely to the background. As a reader, I felt as blasted apart as Olivia herself. In a lot of ways, I respect R. Lee for having the bravery to do that to her readers (and herself). But it's not a pleasant experience.

I can easily talk about the ending without any risk of spoilers: it was basically satisfying to me in and of itself, but Olivia is badly in need of an epilogue! Just a few words from a couple years later would make all the difference.

Before I lay down some well-deserved praise, I have a final criticism: I was bored at a stage in the book where I have never before been bored in a 1000 page book, the final 90%! This was a massive pacing blunder! I had to really power through about 50 pages of material out of sheer desire to complete the story.

But I have to end this review with praise for the book.

R. Lee has created a huge amount of original imaginative material here. From beginning to end, the Gulla straddle the line between being lovable and unlovable. This tension, along with their unique mannerisms makes them three dimensional and utterly believable within the confines of fiction.

The quality of the prose was uniformly high. I caught a few typos, but I catch those in recent releases by major publishing houses all the time.

R. Lee is extremely good at describing things without exposition.

At no point does Olivia lean on any traditional scaffolding or tropes. There are no cheap gags or "feel-good" elements to please an audience. This ain't no Chicken Soup for the Bat Monster's Soul.

[Aleya]

Dnf @ 72%
This book drained me emotionally. I was so excited to read it. It was my fourth book by this author. It seems that with R. Lee Smith, it's always one of two extremes for me: either she gets it wonderfully right like with The Last Hour of Gann and Cottonwood which are two of the most thoughtful and amazing books to me, or she gets it disastrously wrong like with Heat and this travesty of a book. I'm scared to read her other books, and after reading the Last Hour of Gann, I went ahead and bought them all!
The beginning of the book was brilliant, different, engrossing and all the things I have come to associate with R Lee Smith. She has such an amazingly dark imagination. Then it became clear that a lot of this book (like Heat) was about sex and it was not the good kind. It was sex that was "bruising" and violent with no emotional connection between the participants. The kind of fictional sex that I have to take a mental step back from and that ultimately makes me unable to immerse myself in the story. This book was sex, sex and more pointless sex.
I had difficulty relating with the main character and her acceptance of some of the more horrible things that she was quickly forced to endure. I personally hate perfect characters and Olivia was a perfect example. She was all superlatives: the kindest, wisest, most passionate, most fertile, most desirable woman ever. And in addition, she was favored by the gods. It got to be too much for me.
Initially, I was hoping for a romance between the two main characters. Even when I could see the looming disappointment, I still hoped. Then, the great spirit showed up with more senseless sex and... I was done.
Finally, I was terribly bothered by the portrayal of women in the book. The women were little more than semen receptacles and baby ovens. Their place in the society was right at the bottom and it offended me on every page. Once, a character complained about excessive use of the word "pregnant" and it was like she read my mind.
I tried and tried with this book but at 72%, I had to give up. I did not even know that 70% was the magic dnf number. This book was a huge disappointment.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts great, slows in the middle, gallops to the end. The beginning of this book was riveting. I set this book aside about three quarters of the way through because I didn't like the way the story was progressing and because it got a bit bogged down. All the interference of the gods seems like the author is taking the easy way out when creating and resolving conflicts. I do, someday, plan on finishing this book.
So I have finished the book, and am I ever glad. I was so emotionally caught up in where the story was going...not where I thought it should go, that I needed a rest from all the internal emotional drama the book engendered in me. Happily, the author knew better than I where to direct the book. The events with the Gullans and the world building was very interesting. The way the humans addressed, accepted, or changed the Gullans traditions was fascinating. I liked the way the author acknowledged the Mary Sue-ness of Olivia by having the other women tease her about it. The author is original. Each time I read one of R. Lee Smith's books I wonder where she (he?) gets her (his?) ideas and stamina to write such long, delicious books.

[Brooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well... what can I say about this very long book? I’m a huge R. Lee Smith fan, I love the tone of he books, but Olivia I think was one of her earliest published books. It’s not bad but it FELT lonnnng. And while yeah it clocks in a time over 1,000 pages Smith normally writes books that just fly by.

There is a lot to enjoy in this book and a lot to really dislike, unfortunately since the book is so long these parts are mixed together. Would I recommend this book? Probably only to another R Lee smith fan. (After they read her more popular works) I don’t regret reading it at all, but something is missing from the end. It just....ends...

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as great as other R. Lee Smith books but still very interesting.

[Anna Koski · Rating 1 out of 5]

I DNF'd at about 70% whenever the magical god rape scene came into play.

The book was hard to read but not in the same way The Last Hour of Gann was hard to read. Yes there was some hard hitting scenes with the kidnapping and rape (a metric shit ton of fucking rape) but it was actually the main character and the pacing of the book that made it hard to read.

Olivia... She's a Mary Sue. Point blank and period. She's special, does everything right, forgives all trespasses, has horrible shit happen to her and she forgets about it or brushes it off, and she always has an aura of innocent being filled with divine chastity. Fine, that's all okay but then she LITERALLY becomes a carrier of divinity and the god who does it does not care about her wants and needs and she just.... Accepts it. Like a good Mary Sue.

I had to drop it. If the book would have focussed on the hard hitting, I dont think I can live with this shit, relationship elements like with Land of the Beautiful Dead. I would have powered through it but when the 'Chosen One Special Powers' came into play I just... I couldn't continue. It took a lot out of me to read Olivia's character to begin with. It did. I dislike Mary Sues and I do my best to avoid them but the premise was interesting and I wanted to see how the relationship arcs would resolve but the minute the rapey god got involved I knew for a fact we weren't going to get any resolution.

It wouldn't be like Cottonwood where Sanford fights to get back to Sarah, to save her from the torture she was put through.

It wouldn't be like The Last Hour of Gann where Meoraq finds his Gods at Xi'Matezh and in the end Amber saves the day and they both go home, together.

It wouldn't be like the Land of the Beautiful Dead where Azrael takes the last step he has to ensure Lan can be with him through it all and she takes his hand because she loves him beyond her own death.

It wouldn't be like Heat where Tagen gets to keep Lindaria and Kane also gets Raven, an end we were all cheering for for some reason. I guess we all kinda like the unmitigated ass that he is.

This book wasn't going to give me that and I could tell from the moment the god was introduced as the rapey character that he was. We had been introduced to the concept of another kidnap party where the males, Vorgullum included, were gunna leave for months, cutting off any potential resolution with their characters as soon as Mr. Great Raper made an appearance. It was further hammered home when Olivia fully tells Vorgullum that she will leave soon. Meaning the story would veer off, we get no resolution, and it would end on this weird uncompleted note.

I just couldn't handle that. Especially struggling like I did to read all I had.

R. Lee Smith is an amazing author! She is. Ive read Heat, The Last Hour of Gann, Land of the Beautiful Dead, and Cottonwood at least a dozen times. They sit proudly on my bookshelf. It's hard to find good, unapologetic, its about to get freaky weird, monster lover romances and their books fit the bill but this one. It missed the mark entirely. There was nothing redeemable about the bat-guys. There wasn't.

Meoraq was a sexist ass but he truly cared for and loved Amber deeply. He wanted to be better for her, to be there for her no matter what.

Kane was an unmitigated sociopathic murderer who killed humans like they were goldfish given to 5 year olds at the fair but he honestly cared DEEPLY about Raven. He did. It didn't seem like it at times but the absolute douche rocket, deep down cares about her to the extent I would say he loves her.

Azrael is a uncompromising douchebag but his love for Lan was his downfall and in turn her own but even him changing her after her death because he loved her too much to let her sleep, made you realize his love for her was eternal and unending.

And then there was Sanford. He was never a bad guy. I love Sanford from the get go. He was a great guy and honestly him and Sarah deserves the soft ending they had. They truly did.

But there was nothing reedemable about the bat-guys. Even Amy's guy. Who was head over heels with her. Expected her to ENTHUSIASTICALLY have sex with another bat-dude while he was out playing kidnapper again. They treated women lile trading cards and they were unapologetic about breaking them. Sure the one guy gave Amanda back after he made her completely catatonic but any good feelings were gone after Vorgullum tossed Victoria to the women's hall and said fuck or starve and absolutely broke her down as a person to the point where she no longer thought for herself. Even then that was what he was going to do to Amanda because she had a 'young fertile body'.

There was nothing redeemable about them and I might be a monster lover reader but in my opinion the monsters dont have to be bad guys. They are monsters only on how we see them. In the end they are usually just like us and they love just as hard as we do.

The bat-guys were monsters, through and through. And what is worse is you would start seeing them as okay decent people and then they would do something horrendous and set you right back to square one. Monster lover romance is only good when there is love and these guys lack is. 100%

I recommend R. Lee Smith's other books. 100%. This one? Nope. Not even a little.

[Aki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh... I sort of liked this story but then again i found the characters are so annoying...
I think the way Olivia went to help protect everyone would be very endearing, except she cover others evil intention with lies that just basicaly put every one around her in danger. Selflessness only has a purpose if you do it the greater good. Because by hiding the true she put everyone in harm ways.
On the other side i'm not a fan of Vorgullum...
I just kind of think he's a bully, he doesn't plan things through. All this human kidnaping lack information gattering and even if it can't be helped at first because he didn't know any humans, he could have asked after gathering all theses women. Why after 1 year he didn't even manage to make sure how reproduction work for human and they don't need to wait years to have be pregnant again... a true leader have to be hard OK, but without informations it all seem so pointless.
And finaly i'm pretty pleased with the end of this story though i wonder what happen after she pass up her goddess power? A prologue would have been welcome, so we would know if she ever made it back to the tribe would she go back to Vorgullum (even though he got a new human?), or would she be permited to stay mated Doru and Bodual (because the 3 of them were so cute and they actually loved her so much that they secretly fallowed her in her dangerous endevor again the river spirit!) ? Will she be able to raise her chold now? Or will he stay with Sudjammar? And will the human kidnaping continue now that yhe curse again their race is lifted and they can reproduce again as the fertility goodess got chastised and her authority over her decendent? It is still lot of unknow...

[natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading the on-line reviews I almost skipped this book, I am glad I read it and just loved the book. All of R. Lee Smith's books are very different from one another so loving one book does not mean a reader will love all of them, although some do. R. Lee Smith is truly a gifted writer who does a fantastic job at world building and her writing style is easy to read. This book sort of reminded me of Clan of the Cave Bear meets batmen. This is a story about a journey one that Oliver must face. The quest is seems is to remain who she is and not lose her sense of self in the face of many challenges. This is not a romance, although there are elements of the books that concern relationships. However the women are kidnapped, this is how the books starts so it is not a spoiler, so how the women cope with the situation is explored. Again, no one can tell you if you are going to enjoy a book, I really liked this book but that's just me. R. Lee Smith is a very gifted story teller and if you enjoy her books give this one a try. After reading the reviews on line I understand how some my find the ending unclear, I don't think it is at all. In a "quest/journey" book its important to notice the direction a character takes. In the ending Oliver goes East. The direction East has a specific meaning and if you google it you will know her choice.

[Laura Lynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A New Favorite

R Lee Smith writes books that can make you uncomfortable. She writes book that leave an indelible memory. What she wants you to understand about humanity, yourself, you never forget. 5 Stars

[Katie O’Reilly]

DNF @ 15%

I like kinky batman sex as much as the next person but I'm gonna have to call this one, because it is absolutely slow as molasses

[H. T. · Rating 5 out of 5]

R Lee Smith is an amazing world builder. This story gave me a lot to think about, as all her books do. It’s long. Very long. And at times repetitive. This isn’t my favorite RLS book and I don’t recommend it as anyone’s intro to this author. However, I think the depth and complexity of the world building and storytelling warrants a 5 star review from me.

[Lillie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't know this was by r. lee smith when i read it, mainly cause it was late, i wasn't paying attention, and the summary caught my eye. Big mistake.

Now, I know there's a lot of people that like R. Lee Smith's books. I always see people recommending them, highly praising them, etc. I think this is mostly cause her "heroes" are a lot more unique in that they aren't your typical handsome, human man. They're usually a cool looking alien or (in this case) a bat creature. I get that, I get the appeal, I love that as well.

BUT.

Her stories themselves leave much to be desired:

There's a reason I absolutely HATE Smith's stories and the biggest of those is the fact that what is 1000+ pages could be condescend down to about half and still have the emotional impact/get the point across a whole lot fucking faster. Instead, you're constantly rehashing the same damn problems, the same damn arguments, the same damn insecurities and fears and etc etc etc, to the point that I had to take a break more than once.

Reason number two why I dislike Smith's stories is the disturbing fact that a lot of her ocs (not all since i haven't read them all) end up getting raped. Usually more than once/for an extended period of time and either A) end up liking it or B) resort to "oh well this is my life now might as well get over it" or C) immediately jump into bed with another man afterwards cause reasons or D) all of the above. And I don't have to explain how utterly fucking FUCKED UP that is.

Which is a huge problem for me for a number of reasons: A lot of the trauma that the heroine goes through isn't really addressed. At the beginning it very much is; there's this sense of isolation and loneliness and frustration with her situation. She can't go home, she can't do anything about it and it's despairing. But like always with Smith's books, the heroine- once she's through that initial turmoil- is over it. Everything that happens to her from that point on is null in void. She just "gets over" stuff time and time again, making everything that happens to her less impactful cause she doesn't react like she should. Another kidnapped female almost KILLS HER (cuts the bottom of her feet so she can't run, beats her up, chokes her, and leaves her covered in pheromones (almost like a drug) to be raped by another bat creature against his will and she's all "we CAN'T kill her, it's wrong! just tell her if she does it again she'll be punished." Uhm... HELLO... this isn't a child writing in crayon on the walls to be slapped on the wrist an put in time out. This woman tried to KILL YOU and would do so again. Stupid ass decisions like this made me hate the main character.

Reason number three why I dislike Smith's stories is that what you think will be a cut and dry romance story or even just a horror or whatever, always ALWAYS turns into this insane crazy weird ass story that usually involves the heroine screwing about 12 guys cause REASONS. I wanted to read a romance, I was given a bogged down, 1000 page erotica about a girl fucking a bunch of bat creatures, having a baby and then abandoning it, turning into a literal god and then going home. No love, no romance, nothing. The heroine even admits, when asked by another character, that she doesn't really "love" her mate (the bat creature that first kidnapped her and whom she spends a majority of the book with).

And honestly, that's on me. I should have stopped reading this book at this point. But I thought like any other romance, that the heroine was just in denial and eventually she'd come to realize her feelings for the creature were in fact love.... but nope. She just doesn't fall in love with anyone. She sort of has feelings for another male bat creature towards the end of the book but I considered that as more pity and friendship more than love. I wasn't even sure if she loved her baby or if she just felt she was SUPPOSED to care for it since she gave birth to it.

Oh, and just to warn people cause I wasn't and I was pissed: there's NO HAPPY ENDING.

Wish I'd known that before I started this damn book. Another hard lesson learned for me: don't read R. Lee Smith books. I'm not gonna have a good time.

[Puss'N'Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed by PussnBooks.net

Review by Puss’n’Books. Reviewing the darkest, most erotic and taboo books we can find. Click HERE for your next disturbingly sexy read.

I know I say this every time I read one of R Lee Smith’s books but, I never feel like my reviews do her work any justice.

I mean, it’s not every author that can put your soul through the wringer and have you begging for more afterwards.

And it’s nae word o’ a lie to say that every one of her books has had me snorting with laughter, sobbing with intense sorrow, throwing my book across the room in a rage, and rocking my hips along with the characters during the sexy times.

Every. SIngle. One.

And one of my absolute favourite things about her books?
They are all more than 400 pages long!
So without further ado, let’s get to the good stuff.

OLIVIA
Olivia, Olivia…where do I start with ye, lass?
First of all, I gotta say that R Lee Smith knows how to make a female character kick-ass and fucking awesome sauce without overdoing it.

This is one strong, sassy, down to earth and determined chick.
She’s going aboot her usual life, ye ken, coming hame fae work, havin’ a wee bath and snuggling up in bed. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

Aye, right!

Right up until she realises she’s oot in the pouring rain in the wee early hours of the mornin’.
She takes a gander and sees she’s not alone. She’s with a ton of other females and in the company of some…large…fuzzy…bat dudes?

And not the sexy kind either. (I mean who doesn’t fantasize about sexy bat lads…erm, right..?)
It looks like all of them have been kinda drugged to keep them calm and gathered for the pickin’.
They are taken to some far off place in the mountains as the property of their new owner/mate in order to be bred.

So, needless to say, this is absolutely horrifying to all of the women. Especially as these guys have very little understanding of human speech or customs or even their actual physical limitations! (Super large ‘eggplants’ and all that :-) )

As time goes on and they realise they’re not going to be rescued, Olivia somehow becomes the women’s leader. Someone they look up to and admire.

Well…most of them. There’s always at least one skank that you wanna bitch slap.
Taking on that role however is extremely stressful and a heavy burden for Olivia. It becomes her responsibility to take care of her fellow captives and if I’m being honest I would likely have fallen to pieces within the first 5 minutes of seeing a bat dude.

She also manages to gain the respect of the bat people and as she learns their language she also teaches them about human women and how to ‘please’ them, ye ken?

There is so much hope and desperation.
Heartache and desire.
I have such a hard time expressing how R Lee Smith makes me feel…which in itself is rare, hahaha!
Anyway, Olivia goes through some shit, peeps.
Some of it amusing, some of it painful, all of it intense.

THE BAT DUDES
Wow…these guys are not what they appear to be at the beginning of the story.
They are large, furry, strong and brutal males and they have come on a mission.
Their species is starting to die out and this is a last resort kinda thing.

Every one of these guys has excellent and unique personalities and I gotta say, I fell in love with them all!
Or is it maybe lust…hmm…I mean, how odd is it that I wanna get ma leg over these bat-like creatures?

Is it fucked up? Yes.
Do I care? Nope.

I’m a horny woman with too much time on her hands and a drawer full of toys. I feel zero fucks trying to escape here guys :-)

So it’s not just the captured women who are having a hard time with this. Their people find the humans as ugly as the humans find them but they’re doing what they feel they need to for the survival of their species.

This was not a world where comfort came easily to anyone.

Again the depth of the characters and the amazing world-building has you feeling like you’re living this book rather than reading it.

There’s one female bat dude…dudette..? who just has me in feckin’ stitches with her backhands and brutal sayings. I seriously can not stop snorting at her.

Murgull’s insults are great. She keeps calling the humans ‘maggots’ and ‘toads’, haha!

“Should have eaten the food myself,” she grumbled. “Maggots deserve no better than bones.” She looked at Olivia. “This one is full of stars,” she said softly. “We know.” “Pity her. A naked frog alone in her own little brain. Pity her mate. No friend, no talk, no happy times making sparks in the pit. Just clean and feed and dress the frog. Pity them both.” She grunted, shrugging. “Pity is cheap.”

“Eat the food! Murgull brings food and you gape at her with eyes like bugs! Great, fat fools you are! White and lazy, with no wings and naked, slimy bodies. You are like frogs some cruel foot has stepped on!” She turned and started galumphing out, grumbling under her breath. “Ugly, pasty, bloated leeches. Give them old Murgull’s blood, poor Murgull. Less precious than Murgull’s time.”

SEX SCENES
You know what I love about Omegaverse stories? (this isn’t Omegaverse btw) The mating rut.
I seriously get off on the fact that these huge alpha males have zero control over their primal instincts and can think about and act on only one thing.
And yup, there was some serious rutting going on here.

Also! O…M…G…lassies…blowjobs had never been heard of amongst their people!

“No peeking.”
“I won’t.” He sounded very slightly offended. “If you peek, I stop,” she warned him, kneeling. “Stop wh—”
She licked him, the very tip of her tongue drawing a thin line right across the middle of his glans. “...what,” he finished shakily. One hand rose, groped before him, then swept up and covered his eyes. “What was that?” She licked him again, back and forth in tiny sips, until the entire head of him was slick and shiny. The taste of him was earthy and strong, but not unpleasant. It made this easier; she had done it only once before, with Bobby and his hands shoving at her head the whole time as he grunted what she was doing right and wrong, mostly wrong. This was better, maybe only just because she was in control, but it felt good. She pressed her lips firmly to his glans, letting her tongue steal out to flick at him, and hummed against his cock.
“Great Spirit,” she heard him breathe. It sounded like a prayer. Milking him slowly in her fist, Olivia began to lick down the underside of his shaft, attuned to every flinch and leap of his muscles. Now and then, she drew back to suck at the tip of his cock, and also to look up and see if he were peeking. He wasn’t. He now had both hands over his eyes. But mostly she stayed busy, tonguing and lapping beneath his cock around the steady passes of her thumb, until she reached the hard-swollen sac of his balls.
“Don’t!” he hissed as she tongued him there.
“You’re telling me what to do again.”
“Don’t!” Louder. His thighs clenched as she slowly sucked what she could manage into her mouth and out again. She could feel his cock heavy on her hair, twitching like a living thing.
“Don’t! Stop! Stop it now!” She hummed again, with him hot in her mouth. His balls clenched on her tongue and suddenly she felt the little patter of semen falling over her back. Laughter was perhaps not the appropriate response, but it came tumbling out of her anyway. She leaned back, wiping clumsily behind her as Vorgullum sagged against the wall, still hiding in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he groaned.
“I was warned. Sorry. I didn’t realize you really meant it. You can look now, if you want.” He shook his head. She laughed again. “You don’t want to look at me?”
“I’d rather have you finish.”
“Look at me, Vorgullum.” Very slowly, he lowered his hands. She waited until his reluctant eyes met hers, then smiled at him, took his softened cock in her hand, and kissed it. “You’re killing me,” he said seriously.

Final Thoughts on OLIVIA by R Lee Smith
You know what else hit me hard in this book?
The wiseness (is that I word? I feel like it should be a word) of the elders.
I mean the advice that wrinkly old Murgull gives out is indeed freakin’ priceless!

Don’t get me wrong though. I’ve talked about the sex and the slightly lighter situations. Even some humour with the guys but make no mistake; This story is brutal too. There is non-con, mental breakdowns, suicide, violence, abuse as well as sheer terror and depression.
And it’s done in such an amazing way that you crave more when it’s over.

5 (thousand) Stars


GET IT FROM AMAZON HERE

[Whitney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, so I wasn't going to write a review for this one but I started reading other reviews and felt I had to.

I loved this book and I guess I'm one of the few that loved it more than Last hour of Gann, and I loooved Last hour of Gann. This author has a way with words that continues to awe, and starving for more. That has you rooting for the monsters that should make you yearn for the light of day and the comfort of and safety of your childhood bed.

R. Lee Smith never fails to make her stories real; life is not fair, life doesn't give you one obstacle to overcome and your done, life doesn't sit there and wait to be lived. Life is hard, it's sad and it hurts. Over and over again you have to pick yourself up and move on. You have to want it, otherwise life will pass you by and leave you behind.

But throughout life's ups and, mostly, downs one thing we have to remember is our humanity. The power to forgive is amazing, it frees you like nothing can. If you have ever been in a place so dark and come to the point you just let it go? There are no words. Several other reviewers have commented on Olivia's overt kindness and ability to forgive on a negative note. I believe it's one of her best strengths. Now even I am not as good at forgiving as Olivia is and I don't think I could forgive every evil that has been set on her, but I don't fault her for it. It's a power I wish I had. Kodjunn and Doru have both said that her compassion has changed them, has awakened them as a people. (I wish I had quotes for you, for there are many, but I'm too raw to look right now). Life for the gullan will never be the same. And that's a good thing.

One thing I will say about R. Lee Smith, I wish for more of an ending, not a different one, just more. There's leaving someone waiting more and then there's leaving someone hanging. (The books that I have read so far) seem like they have a to-be-continue instead of the end at the end. All I (and it seems like many others) need is a few pages of epilog, there's just too much left unanswered, left unsaid for me. But this is not my work, and can only hope that Ms. Smith will bless us, some day, with some nuggets of the after lives some some of my(our) favorite characters of all time.